Maggie

[Bonsaiboy]

"Two little mice fell into a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned, but the second mouse, he struggled so hard that he eventually churned that cream into butter and he walked out..."

Then along came a man and discovered that the other mice was not dead at all. He did seem rather weak and feeble but had survived by eating the butter made by the other mouse. The man decided to leave him there and help him out by providing the bucket with a roof and bringing him some butter every day. He expected the mouse to eventually recover completely and leave the bucket, but no matter how much he coaxed him out the mouse seemed to be quite content to stay in the bucket and wait for his butter everyday.

And so it became part of the man's habit to do this every day. He quite enjoyed it. It added meaning and purpose to his life. But butter is expensive, and he couldn't afford to endlessly support the little mouse like this. Then one day he saw the other mouse. This mouse had, by now, gotten himself a nice new home of his own under the floorboards. He often saw the little mouse scurrying around, and he seemed to have more than enough to live on. It didn't seem fair, the man thought, for one mouse to have so much and for other to make do with just butter.

He then had his idea. He trapped the mouse one day. And again put him back into a bucket. But this time a much bigger bucket. He then poured cream into it that the mouse duly turned into butter. But the bucket was too big for him to climb out of this time. The man took out half of the butter and gave it to the other mouse. He continued to do this every day until he tripped over the buckets one day and broke his neck.

The mice both walked out of the upturned buckets and one subsequently ate the other.

 

[DubaiSpur]

1978 Jaws 2 released, under Labour rule. Who actually ran the country!?.. government or the over sized pot bellied union masters across the country.

In the Thatcher years at least the country got back on its feet.. I suggest we would be like Greece otherwise, work when we feel like it whilst paying no taxes, then look at each other wondering why the country was fudged, blaming everyone but ourselves.

Well, you stated your opinion. Better than sticking up a picture and then inviting viewers to draw their own (vastly differing) conclusions from it.

I don't agree, mind: I think the manufacturing industries and North Sea oil boom would have prevented a Greece ever occurring. Nevertheless, I won't dispute it, I'm done.

 

[Baleforce]

Anyone else agree that the Poll Tax was/is better than the Council Tax.

from a logical point of view, it probably was, i'm not old enough to ever have paid poll tax, but as I understand it everyone paid the same, right now, despite the fact that I can't afford to buy a house and only rent I still pay more than people 5 doors down who could afford to buy their own house solely because the one I rent is a bit bigger, we both get our bins emptied on the same day by the same people in the same truck, we both go to the same library, we both have access to the same park and our children will go to the same school, even worse, I used to live in Kensington, the council tax was half as much and I didn't even need to sort the glass bottles from the paper, or pay full price at the swimming pool, I got more for less, its illogical

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Well, you stated your opinion. Better than sticking up a picture and then inviting viewers to draw their own (vastly differing) conclusions from it.

I don't agree, mind: I think the manufacturing industries and North Sea oil boom would have prevented a Greece ever occurring. Nevertheless, I won't dispute it, I'm done.

The manufacturing industries throughout Europe were dead other than Germany, which is now also dying. Workers in Europe are too self entitled, too greedy. Always demanding more rights, more money. Eventually renders the companies they work for uncompetitive. Europe is fudged!

 

[COYS]

I look at the 70s and I feel glad I wasn't alive. I look at the 80s and feel like I wish I was alive (albeit, as a Londoner). I obviously sympathise for those who were hit hard by Thatcher's policies but as a well-educated teenager I have to accept these reforms were necessary. I wish a perfect society existed. Every system has its flaws, but wow our country seemed like a proper brickhole when my parents were growing up.

I think we need someone like her today. A strong and passionate leader. Not some pussy who gets pushed around by everyone around him. A person with clear views on what they want done and how they will do it. People refer to all class struggles that happen today as Thatcher's legacy. Were the miner strikes in the 70s not class struggles? Would class struggles not exist had Thatcher not taken over? Actually they probably wouldn't, because we'd be living in the Socialist Republic of Britain thanks to a workers' revolution.

People think there is a divide between the upper and lower classes because of Margaret Thatcher. This isn't true, there is a divide because of human greed and corruption between those within their own social classes.

We needed her. I thank her for saving my country and getting us to where we are today. Britain was not the place to be under Labour. We were weak, skint and powerless. Today our small island is well and truly on the map. RIP.

 

[P.D.]

On the contrary, her Bruges speech set Anglo-European cooperation back years, leaving us more dependent on the United States than ever before. Her unabashed support for Augusto Pinochet was an embarassment even to her own party members, and to this day she is remembered as the Prime Minister than most fiercely labelled Nelson Mandela a terrorist and the one that most determinedly supported the apartheid South African government.

She won the Falklands conflict, and allowed U.S missiles to be stationed on British bases, making us a convenient first-strike target for the Russians. Those were her defining foreign policy moments.

She firmly established up in the international community, not saying she was well liked by all countries but she put us back on the map.

You can take that view, others are of the view that she didn't back the SA sanctions because it would have harmed black people at the time more than it would have helped them.

A lot of eastern European countries are to this day grateful for her contribution.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

People blaming society now on what happened over 20 years ago are just crazy! :lol: What is the point in trying to debate with such idiots? In the UK it is clear what the problem is. Your politicians now are too sensitive and your press too powerful. Your health system, your education system and your welfare state are shot to pieces due to people involved them abusing them for so long. Europe is the same. Too many foolish ideologists who don't practice what they preach, or are guilty of what they condemn. Everyone is selfish, it is a natural human condition.

And kids who weren't even living during that era need to look at their own lives and stop trying to blame the failings of the past on why they are failing now. Everyone can forge their life anew, free from the shackles of the past. You just have to let it go man!

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

I look at the 70s and I feel glad I wasn't alive. I look at the 80s and feel like I wish I was alive (albeit, as a Londoner). I obviously sympathise for those who were hit hard by Thatcher's policies but as a well-educated teenager I have to accept these reforms were necessary. I wish a perfect society existed. Every system has its flaws, but wow our country seemed like a proper brickhole when my parents were growing up.

I think we need someone like her today. A strong and passionate leader. Not some pussy who gets pushed around by everyone around him. A person with clear views on what they want done and how they will do it. People refer to all class struggles that happen today as Thatcher's legacy. Were the miner strikes in the 70s not class struggles? Would class struggles not exist had Thatcher not taken over? Actually they probably wouldn't, because we'd be living in the Socialist Republic of Britain thanks to a workers' revolution.

People think there is a divide between the upper and lower classes because of Margaret Thatcher. This isn't true, there is a divide because of human greed and corruption between those within their own social classes.

We needed her. I thank her for saving my country and getting us to where we are today. Britain was not the place to be under Labour. We were weak, skint and powerless. Today our small island is well and truly on the map. RIP.

80's was the best of times! 90's was a real bummer

 

[Baleforce]

People blaming society now on what happened over 20 years ago are just crazy! :lol: What is the point in trying to debate with such idiots? In the UK it is clear what the problem is. Your politicians now are too sensitive and your press too powerful. Your health system, your education system and your welfare state are shot to pieces due to people involved them abusing them for so long. Europe is the same. Too many foolish ideologists who don't practice what they preach, or are guilty of what they condemn. Everyone is selfish, it is a natural human condition.

And kids who weren't even living during that era need to look at their own lives and stop trying to blame the failings of the past on why they are failing now. Everyone can forge their life anew, free from the shackles of the past. You just have to let it go man!

i completely agree

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Point being, if garbage on the streets can be said to have been permanently displayed pre-Thatcher, then equally the Tottenham riots and social unrest can be said to have been direct products of life after Thatcher.

Pictures can be made to prove many points.

Is more down to the young living in the UK as being a real bunch of assholes! Sorry, but it is true. You have the worst youth in western Europe and it's because you are so badly influenced by cultures from the USA. London now is LA and NYC in the 80's man.

 

[COYS]

People like to portray the working class as the sweet, innocent victims of the 80s. But let's rewind a bit. Why was Thatcher voted in in the first place? It surely couldn't be because the country was fed up of the trade unions taking over could it? It couldn't be because of the constant strikes could it? Left wingers love to talk about greed and corruption but never forget that greed exists everywhere in society, and that every rich person is evil, but the kid who's just gone and mugged your grandmother with a knife is innocent because he's a victim of society.

My experiences from the 80s come from stories only. It was long before my time. Admittedly what I say may be very flawed, but I give you what I know from my understanding. Think about it from my point of view though. I'm growing up in a society where my future looks bleak, when 13 years ago Labour was promising to ensure my future was bright. I may go to university and come out with no job for a couple of years. Right now I could use a Thatcher myself.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

People like to portray the working class as the sweet, innocent victims of the 80s. But let's rewind a bit. Why was Thatcher voted in in the first place? It surely couldn't be because the country was fed up of the trade unions taking over could it? It couldn't be because of the constant strikes could it? Left wingers love to talk about greed and corruption but never forget that greed exists everywhere in society, and that every rich person is evil, but the kid who's just gone and mugged your grandmother with a knife is innocent because he's a victim of society.

My experiences from the 80s come from stories only. It was long before my time. Admittedly what I say may be very flawed, but I give you what I know from my understanding. Think about it from my point of view though. I'm growing up in a society where my future looks bleak, when 13 years ago Labour was promising to ensure my future was bright. I may go to university and come out with no job for a couple of years. Right now I could use a Thatcher myself.

What people forget was the early 70's were bleak times. There was a lot more discontent in the 70's than the 80's, 90's, 00's or today and that is despite the global crisis. The 80's, not just in the UK, was an era where normal people really could seize opportunity and make something of themselves, where before you had the stereotypes of the rich remaining rich and the rest of us just leading standard lives.

I do think in the UK you are sliding backwards to the 70's though, and too many people have adopted the old attitude of they deserve something for nothing. It's not up to the government to improve your life man, it's up to YOU to get a fulfilling job and life.

 

[DubaiSpur]

People blaming society now on what happened over 20 years ago are just crazy! :lol: What is the point in trying to debate with such idiots? In the UK it is clear what the problem is. Your politicians now are too sensitive and your press too powerful. Your health system, your education system and your welfare state are shot to pieces due to people involved them abusing them for so long. Europe is the same. Too many foolish ideologists who don't practice what they preach, or are guilty of what they condemn. Everyone is selfish, it is a natural human condition.

And kids who weren't even living during that era need to look at their own lives and stop trying to blame the failings of the past on why they are failing now. Everyone can forge their life anew, free from the shackles of the past. You just have to let it go man!

Selfishness as a natural human condition is a very new concept, historically. Perhaps if you stopped accepting dogma as truth you might see that as well. Nevertheless, in your relentless drive to make everything competitive, you must compete with the cheapest and the most cost-effective, which means either everyone will be working in near poverty like the masses in India and China or will be unemployed as those very same masses take over production, services and just about everything else.

Those are the ideal capitalist conditions, the ones in which everyone is perfectly competitive, worth only what they produce. Europe, and the UK, tried to break away from that model, to provide a life for their citizens that wasn't just 'slog till you die with no benefits, no healthcare and no hope'. Sure, maybe they were doomed to fail when it turned out their own 'job-creators' were infinitely more disposed towards employing hungry, desperate labour than contented, powerful workers. But that doesn't mean we can't lament the passing of the age when governments and societies cared, or that we can't excoriate those who hastened the demise of 'society' at the benefit of the indvidual.

As for the 'kids who weren't even living' jibe, I'm not sure if you meant me, or just people in general. If you did mean me, I'm employed ,travel relatively frequently as a somewhat glorified salesman and enjoy a quiet, dignified life with healthcare benefits and working rights I found I couldn't get in the States, my first choice for employment opportunities. I don't view my life as a failure, but does that mean I'm not allowed to feel empathy for those who never got the chances I did, who never got the lucky breaks I did? I freely admit, I got lucky. I lucked out enough to gain a scholarship at a university, and to meet someone who set me up for a job afterwards. I lucked out enough to be the child of parents who though never wealthy, were smart enough to emigrate to Dubai when the money started flowing. I lucked out enough to be able to survive a student's life and live with student debt because was able to discount the healthcare bills I would have had to pay outside Canada.

I was lucky. A lot of people in Thatcher's Britain weren't, and still aren't. I recognise that, and feel for those people. The fact I display empathy for them itself probably contradicts the Thatcherite 'I'm alright Jack' dogma, but what can I do, I was raised in a fiercely liberal household and studied political science and economics, making me an uber-liberal in my own right.

But kindly stop telling me to be selfish, because it is somehow a human condition. I don't believe it for a second, and one of the reasons Thatcher disgusts me is because she created a society where thking that way was somehow normal and acceptable.

Ah, well. Must follow my own advice, and leave this thread.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Selfishness as a natural human condition is a very new concept, historically. Perhaps if you stopped accepting dogma as truth you might see that as well. Nevertheless, in your relentless drive to make everything competitive, you must compete with the cheapest and the most cost-effective, which means either everyone will be working in near poverty like the masses in India and China or will be unemployed as those very same masses take over production, services and just about everything else.

Those are the ideal capitalist conditions, the ones in which everyone is perfectly competitive, worth only what they produce. Europe, and the UK, tried to break away from that model, to provide a life for their citizens that wasn't just 'slog till you die with no benefits, no healthcare and no hope'. Sure, maybe they were doomed to fail when it turned out their own 'job-creators' were infinitely more disposed towards employing hungry, desperate labour than contented, powerful workers. But that doesn't mean we can't lament the passing of the age when governments and societies cared, or that we can't excoriate those who hastened the demise of 'society' at the benefit of the indvidual.

As for the 'kids who weren't even living' jibe, I'm not sure if you meant me, or just people in general. If you did mean me, I'm employed ,travel relatively frequently as a somewhat glorified salesman and enjoy a quiet, dignified life with healthcare benefits and working rights I found I couldn't get in the States, my first choice for employment opportunities. I don't view my life as a failure, but does that mean I'm not allowed to feel empathy for those who never got the chances I did, who never got the lucky breaks I did? I freely admit, I got lucky. I lucked out enough to gain a scholarship at a university, and to meet someone who set me up for a job afterwards. I lucked out enough to be the child of parents who though never wealthy, were smart enough to emigrate to Dubai when the money started flowing. I lucked out enough to be able to survive a student's life and live with student debt because was able to discount the healthcare bills I would have had to pay outside Canada.

I was lucky. A lot of people in Thatcher's Britain weren't, and still aren't. I recognise that, and feel for those people. The fact I display empathy for them itself probably contradicts the Thatcherite 'I'm alright Jack' dogma, but what can I do, I was raised in a fiercely liberal household and studied political science and economics, making me an uber-liberal in my own right.

But kindly stop telling me to be selfish, because it is somehow a human condition. I don't believe it for a second, and one of the reasons Thatcher disgusts me is because she created a society where thking that way was somehow normal and acceptable.

Ah, well. Must follow my own advice, and leave this thread.

I can't be bothered to read the rest of your post just because of this first part. Unless you think that the Egyptian dynasties can be regarded as new? :lol:

 

[COYS]

What people forget was the early 70's were bleak times. There was a lot more discontent in the 70's than the 80's, 90's, 00's or today and that is despite the global crisis. The 80's, not just in the UK, was an era where normal people really could seize opportunity and make something of themselves, where before you had the stereotypes of the rich remaining rich and the rest of us just leading standard lives.

I do think in the UK you are sliding backwards to the 70's though, and too many people have adopted the old attitude of they deserve something for nothing. It's not up to the government to improve your life man, it's up to YOU to get a fulfilling job and life.

That's the point. I believe as a nation once we lost Thatcher, the leader that was strong, we slid. Apart from a bit of false optimism from the early 00s, we've pretty much been through brick times. I'm trying my best to ensure I'll get a good job when I'm older, been doing a few hours of work tonight. But we're becoming the state that Thatcher would never tolerate. The state of free benefits to those who don't work, the state where immigrants are allowed to flood in and take our jobs and leech our benefits, the state where everyday looks worse than the day before. This has been the work of Labour, the party who have always ensured that the lower class will always be protected no matter what they offer to society. This is where the scrounger culture comes from. I may get slated for this, or be seen as overly right, but we have to remember a percentage of the lower class today are nothing but a drain and they love it that way.

I'm not proof-reading what I'm saying because I'm tired and overworked so half the stuff I wrote probably makes no sense. All I'm gonna say is I'm a 16 year old right now. On August the 23rd I may get my GCSE results back with a high number of As and A*s. However I still don't look forward to the next 10 years.

 

[Baleforce]

That doesn't sound like luck DubaiSpur, they don't pick scholarships out of a hat, you must have impressed them.

I do think selfishness is the natural human condition though, look at mankind's recorded history, from day one, war after war after war, to take something that was wanted from someone who had it.

 

[DubaiSpur]

I can't be bothered to read the rest of your post just because of this first part. Unless you think that the Egyptian dynasties can be regarded as new? :lol:

If I remember correctly, the Pharaoh was a GHod put on Earth to rule in the heavenly gods' name. The Egyptian religion (the way of life for the Egyptian people) held that you were judged by Osiris in the afterlife, and that if you lived a good life and helped your fellow Egyptians, your heart would be judged pure and you would be admitted entry to the afterlife. If you were judged a liar, or greedy, or manipulative, your heart was fed to a crocodile or something.

Belief in selfishness as the pinnacle of human thought only started around the same time as the Enlightenment era, when the demise of religion and the rise of scientific thought perpetuated theories on the nature of humanity.

 

[COYS]

If I remember correctly, the Pharaoh was a GHod put on Earth to rule in the heavenly gods' name. The Egyptian religion (the way of life for the Egyptian people) held that you were judged by Osiris in the afterlife, and that if you lived a good life and helped your fellow Egyptians, your heart would be judged pure and you would be admitted entry to the afterlife. If you were judged a liar, or greedy, or manipulative, your heart was fed to a crocodile or something.

Belief in selfishness as the pinnacle of human thought only started around the same time as the Enlightenment era, when the demise of religion and the rise of scientific thought perpetuated theories on the nature of humanity.

Care to explain Medieval religious persecution and all wars before the Enlightenment era then?

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

If I remember correctly, the Pharaoh was a GHod put on Earth to rule in the heavenly gods' name. The Egyptian religion (the way of life for the Egyptian people) held that you were judged by Osiris in the afterlife, and that if you lived a good life and helped your fellow Egyptians, your heart would be judged pure and you would be admitted entry to the afterlife. If you were judged a liar, or greedy, or manipulative, your heart was fed to a crocodile or something.

Belief in selfishness as the pinnacle of human thought only started around the same time as the Enlightenment era, when the demise of religion and the rise of scientific thought perpetuated theories on the nature of humanity.

And yet the Egyptians had slaves? So that wasn't selfish? :lol: We are tribal in nature you know? We care about ourselves second in most cases. Those we love come first. In fact we will put those we love ahead of almost all others, which in itself is a very selfish act. Then we may put our tribe in front of all others, which again is a selfish act and on and on and on it goes. And with any tribe you have a chief and guess what? The chief normally isn't a nice guy. He is normally an asshole who is a bully. Maybe not to his own tribe, but he will stop other tribes taking his resources or he may strike out and take theirs instead. Selfish no?

I will always put my family ahead of the needs of others. If that is selfish, then I am selfish and proud man! :lol:

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Care to explain Medieval religious persecution and all wars before the Enlightenment era then?

I'm not even going to get into religion, which in itself is a very selfish thing. Worshipping this wonderful overlord and if you don't worship him in the right way you suffer an eternity of hell? Sounds like a selfish prick to me :lol: